Stanford Report, April 30, 2008

Center on Ethics to celebrate fifth anniversary

By Cynthia Haven

The New Yorker has called him "the most influential living philosopher." His critics have called him "the most dangerous man in the world today." But Peter Singer raises the kind of questions the Stanford Center on Ethics wants to encourage students, faculty and the public to think about.

The Princeton University professor, who argues that parents ought to have the right to end the lives of severely disabled infants but who is best known for arguing that animals share an equal moral status with humans, spoke to a capacity crowd April 23 in Dinkelspiel Auditorium as part of the Arrow Lecture Series on Ethics and Leadership. Sponsored by the Stanford Center on Ethics, the series is probably the most public aspect of the center, and it illustrates the center's mission of promoting public discourse on the fundamental moral issues of today.

Next week the center celebrates its fifth anniversary, which also marks a transition of directorship from founding director Deborah Rhode, the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and a scholar of legal ethics, to Debra Satz, the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society. Satz is currently the director of the Barbara and Bowen McCoy Ethics in Society Program, a position that soon will go to Rob Reich, an associate professor of political science.

A reception celebrating the center's fifth birthday is scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. May 8 in Kennedy Grove. The event is free and open to the Stanford community. Speakers will be Provost John Etchemendy; Richard Saller, dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences; and Dennis Thompson, a professor of public policy and director emeritus of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard. (If planning to attend, let the organizers know by May 5 by sending an e-mail to ethics.center@stanford.edu.)

The reception will follow a noon lecture on campaign ethics with Thompson, who is a leader in the "institutional approach" to political ethics, in the Cypress Lounge of Tresidder Union.

Ethics on campus

Although an ethics center is not a novelty on university campuses—Princeton and Harvard each have one—it is still an exception rather than the rule. The Stanford Center on Ethics aims to become a high-profile effort, with the university expanding and deepening its commitment.

Although speakers like Singer doubtless help to stimulate critical thinking within the university and the broader community, the center's goals extend beyond bringing provocative speakers to campus. It hopes to advance foundational theory, moral-reasoning skills and social commitment through research and teaching. Satz also wants to increase the number of collaborative projects in the areas of, for example, the environment, education and social science. She plans to continue with series such as "The Ethics of Food and the Environment," which brought Michael Pollan (author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore's Dilemma), Marion Nestle and Singer to campus.

Perfect storm

The center was established in the wake of massive corporate scandals that cost the United States an estimated $40 billion.

In the aftermath, the center noted that fewer than a fifth of Americans had confidence in the honesty and integrity of lawyers or politicians. Only a quarter believed that large companies are honest in dealing with consumers and their own employees.

For Rhode, it was a call to arms. "The sheer scale of the moral meltdown" impelled a response, she said, but, at Stanford, there was not any central institution to coordinate a response.

"I began sending letters to anyone I could think of," Rhode said. She went "cap in hand" to each of the deans. Stanford President John Hennessy and Provost Etchemendy supported the initiative and provided start-up funding that was matched by the deans of Stanford's seven schools, all of whom agreed to support the fledgling center.

"We were up and running," she said, then paused. "That last sentence collapsed a lot of planning, hiring, the nitty-gritty of administrative life."

Satz hailed her predecessor's "personal commitment to bringing ethical reflection to bear on complex questions of policy and social decision," which is "evident in her own work as well as the work undertaken by the center. She is a leading figure in the field of legal ethics, a passionate advocate for connecting scholarship with service, a reformer who aims at strengthening professional responsibility, a proponent of both gender equality and the value of a diverse leadership. She walks the walk."

Rhode returned the praise, saying that Satz is "the ideal successor—I'm extremely pleased that she's going to move the center forward." Others lauded Satz's high profile in the field of ethics and the intellectual rigor of her work as auguring a strong future for the center.

A new director

Satz said it is too early to give specifics about the center's future direction, but certainly one goal will be to increase its visibility on a sometimes indifferent campus. "The word isn't out as much as it should be about the center and its programs," Satz said. "I'd like to see a more visible presence for ethics on the campus."

She remains upbeat in the face of apathy: "I think we have an opportunity to engage the community in discussion on the important questions we face as a society and as a globe," she said. "It may seem quiet at times on the campus, given what is going on in the world, but there are some amazing students here who really want to make a difference."

While visitors such as Singer might inspire students to "explore differences, respectfully," according to Satz, the kinds of changes she seeks are more far-reaching. She considers ethics to be central to the various initiatives that the university is pursuing, and notes that issues of education, health, internationalism and the environment all involve ethical dimensions.

A hands-on approach

Satz's hands-on approach to change is perhaps best exemplified by the Ethics in Society Program's innovative project with Hope House in Redwood City. For seven years, the program has sponsored a course on the humanities (think Plato, think Kant) for groups of 15 to 20 female drug and alcohol addicts and former convicts who have been placed, most of them involuntarily, in a residential rehabilitation program. The course, offered in conjunction with Stanford Continuing Studies and the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities, is taught exclusively by Stanford faculty, with undergraduates as writing tutors and course assistants. It has been popular on both sides: More than 30 Stanford faculty members have taught at Hope House over the years. Though the writing skills of the women are generally weak, Satz said, "their discussion and analytic abilities are breathtaking."

Writing in the magazine Dissent, Satz and co-author Reich noted that "the course is a catalyst for discussions about how the purposes of the modern university relate to larger public concerns."

On an elite campus, she said, "It's an eye-opener for the students and faculty, an anti-disdain pill, showing us how much talent and ability there can be anywhere and everywhere."

If implemented on a larger scale, the Stanford Center on Ethics could go some way toward making the kind of transformation Columbia's Andrew Delbanco called for in the New York Times Magazine last year: "As our children go through the arduous process of choosing a college and trying to persuade that college to choose them, it will be a sign of improved social health if we can get to the point of asking not about the school's ranking but whether it's a place that helps students confront hard questions in an informed way."

It may even take students to the next step, helping them model the changes they want to see in the world at large.

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